Lincoln County, Neb. — A mother and her son were rescued from the Nebraska Public Power District Canal Thursday after the SUV they were riding in went into the water.
The mother placed a call to the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office Dispatch around 3:30 p.m. and said that she had driven into the canal and was floating down the canal on top of the SUV with her son and the vehicle was sinking.
The woman said she was near the intersection of Wagon Trail Road and NPPD Canal Road, or about 7 miles west and 3 miles south of North Platte.
When deputies arrived, they found the woman and her son standing on Canal Road, adjacent to the canal.
Also responding was the State Patrol, EMS personnel, the North Platte Dive Team and the Sutherland Dive Team.
Deputies learned that the woman took her child for a ride in the vehicle after a long night of trying to get him to sleep.
The woman said that she apparently fell asleep, awakening when the vehicle was going down the steep bank into the canal.
She broke out the back window with a glass breaker and was able to get her son and her purse onto the roof of the vehicle. While floating down the canal she was able to call 911.
At the same time, her husband was receiving notification from the vehicle that it had been involved in a crash. The notification also pinpointed the location of the crash, so he was the first to the scene because they live a short distance away from the accident.
He reported that as the vehicle was going fully under the water his wife leaped toward the bank as hard as she could and then was able to swim close enough to the bank that he could reach them both and pull them from the current.
Emergency medical services personnel examined both victims and determined that the only injury to either of them was a scratch on the boy’s forehead. The dive teams worked with Al’s Towing of Hershey to remove the GMC Terrain from the canal.
